Biden's Spend Our Way to Prosperity Will Send Us to Perdition Instead

Economists — including Democrats — have been warning that the United States is on the precipice of runaway inflation since shortly after President Biden took office.

He attempted to assuage those fears Monday during a speech in which he argued that his massive $4.5 trillion domestic spending package would help keep prices low over the long run.

"My 'Build Back Better' plan will be a force for achieving lower prices for Americans looking ahead," Biden said. "If your primary concern right now is inflation, you should be even more enthusiastic about this plan," he added.

So he plans to keep inflation down by spending $4.5 trillion, financed by raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy, along with printing money.

Fears over inflation rose significantly when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week that the "Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.9 percent in June on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.6 percent in May." The dangerous spike was the "the largest 1-month change since June 2008 when the index rose 1.0 percent."

This is nearly twice the 0.5% increase that Bloomberg predicted a few short hours earlier.

Two days later White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki defended the president’s mid 13-figure proposed spending spree as a means of combatting inflation.

"The way to keep prices in our economy down is to increase the supply of goods that consumers want to buy and keep the costs of producing and getting them to market lower," she claimed.

It would actually have the opposite result — more dollars would be chasing essentially the same goods and services, causing prices to rise. Nevertheless, the president’s spokeswoman kept digging.

"That's exactly what the president's bipartisan infrastructure framework and the 'Build Back Better' plans will do," Psaki continued.

"It will also, as we work to pass the 'Build Back Better' reconciliation package, increase the availability of child care, more workers will enter the workforce, increasing our output and helping to keep prices down. So we are quite mindful of it."

Despite these reassurances, The Epoch Times reported Sunday that inflation would be worse that previously predicted, according to two Wall Street CEOs. Yesterday, two days later, the same publication’s headline read, "Core Inflation Stands at 29-Year High, Rises Faster Than Wages."

Even former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers believes that the threat of inflation is worse today than it was in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s, and mapped out his reasoning in a lengthy Twitter thread.

He referred to "Soaring oil prices. Growing deficits. Supply-chain bottlenecks," and noted that in the 1960s-1970s, "the deficit was in range of 3 percent. Now the deficit is in the range of 15 percent."

Other than the approximate $1 trillion infrastructure provisions that enjoyed bipartisan support, the bulk of the bill has nothing to do with infrastructure.

"The bill is expected to include President Biden’s 'human' infrastructure priorities not covered by a bipartisan proposal, such as child care, healthcare, education and additional climate change-related provisions," CBS News reported.

According to the Constitution, the federal government’s role is limited to:

Defense, war prosecution, peace, foreign relations, foreign commerce, and interstate commerce;
The protection of citizens’ constitutional rights (e.g. the right to vote) and ensuring that slavery remains illegal;
Establishing federal courts inferior to the Supreme Court of the United States;
Copyright protection;
Coining (and printing) money;
Establishing post offices and post roads, a road designated for the transportation of postal mail;
Establishing a national set of universal weights and measures;
Taxation needed to raise revenue to perform these essential functions.

It says nothing about child care, healthcare, education or climate change.

Daniel Hannan, a conservative British politician once said, "You cannot spend your way out of a recession or borrow your way out of debt."

Add to that, courtesy of GOP rapid response director Tommy Pigott, we cannot "inflate our way out of inflation."

Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., celebrated Biden’s first six months in office yesterday on Twitter by listing his accomplishments:

CRIME up in major cities
MIGRANTS rushing the border
PRICE OF EVERYTHING UP thanks to #Bidenflation

He gave the president a "6 MONTH GRADE: F"

Hice was being generous.

Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to BizPac Review and Liberty Unyielding. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and an enthusiastic Second Amendment supporter, who can often be found honing his skills at the range. Read Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.